What you see and can do when a closed case's files have moved to cheaper storage — the storage banner, restoring archived originals, costs, and rebuilding previews.
Last updated: October 20, 2026 by Steve
Files in Archive Storage
Closed cases keep their files in your Azure storage account for as long as your records schedule says. Case archiving moves those files to cheaper storage tiers on a schedule your administrator sets. This page explains what that looks like on a case, what keeps working, and how to bring an archived file back. The storage costs are in your own Azure subscription.
Archiving is off until an administrator switches a storage policy on. A tenant that sets up nothing changes nothing. Jurisdiction packs only recommend a policy per case type, switched off, as a starting point built from public information about the legislation, not legal advice. Your legal counsel validates and adjusts it.
What Archiving Never Does
- It never moves anything of an open case. Reopening a case stops every stage.
- Moving a file to a cheaper tier never deletes it. Only housekeeping, disposition and the retention purge delete files, and a preservation hold stops all three.
- It never changes the retention purge.
- It never puts into archive storage a file still waiting for its malware scan, a response package, a released file, correspondence, or an original that was itself released. Those stay online.
The Four Storage Tiers
| Tier | What it is | Storage price, per GB a month (list price) | Reading a file |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Where every file starts | USD 0.0200 | At once, no extra charge |
| Cool | Online, cheaper to keep, a small charge to read | USD 0.0110 | At once; USD 0.01 per GB read |
| Cold | Online, cheaper again, a larger charge to read | USD 0.0045 | At once; USD 0.03 per GB read |
| Archive | Offline — the cheapest, about a tenth of Hot | USD 0.0018 | Only after a restore, which takes hours |
These are Azure's list prices for locally redundant storage in Canada Central, in US dollars (October 2026). Your administrator can enter your own prices. Azure also charges for leaving a tier early, and AccessPoint plans around those minimums so the charge is rare. Only originals ever go to Archive.
What You See on a Case
An archived original is offline: Azure keeps it, but nobody can read it until it is restored.
- Row chips — Archived on the file's row in the Documents list, Restoring — ready about 03:40 while it comes back, Preview removed when housekeeping removed its preview copy, and Disposed of after a disposition. Files in Cool or Cold have no chip and open as before.
- The storage banner above the case's tabs — how many files are in archive storage and their size, with Restore…; restores under way and when they should be back; previews removed, with Rebuild previews; and documents disposed of.
What Keeps Working Without a Restore
Only the original goes offline. Its viewer copy, the preview copies of a recording and the packages stay online. So you can still:
- preview the document, mark and redact it, run Find & redact, and search it;
- ask Ask AccessPoint about it;
- release it again in a new package (a document's release is burned onto its viewer PDF, which stays online);
- play a recording's preview;
- download every package that was made.
What Needs a Restore
- downloading the original file, converting it again, and extracting an email's attachments;
- a spreadsheet's layout preview and grid review;
- opening the current version of a working file, and attaching it to correspondence;
- an evidence package with Include document files (one without documents is built from the fingerprint AccessPoint recorded);
- for a recording, a release, a transcription or a face or text scan, because they all read the original recording.
Each of these opens the restore prompt instead of failing. A response package that needs archived files lists them all in one prompt.
The Restore Prompt
The prompt, titled Restore from archive storage, shows the files, their size, where they come back to and, for each priority, the cost and when they should be back.
| Priority | When the files are back | Cost (list prices) | Who can choose it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (default) | Usually within 15 hours | USD 0.022 per GB, plus USD 5.50 per 10,000 files | Anyone who can manage the case's documents, up to your organization's daily limit |
| High | Usually within an hour for files under 10 GB. Azure restores at most 10 GB an hour across the whole storage account, so a large or busy restore takes longer; the prompt counts the restores already queued | USD 0.12 per GB, plus USD 60 per 10,000 files | Administrators (Manage configuration) only |
The cost includes Azure's early-deletion charge when a file went to Archive less than 180 days ago. Azure gives these times as estimates, and a restore can take longer.
Someone who can open the case but not manage its documents sees the facts without Restore, and who can restore. Files already coming back join that restore and are not charged twice. Asking for High raises a Standard restore under way.
As a rough guide, restoring 12 GB of archived originals costs about USD 0.26 at Standard priority (USD 1.44 at High).
The Daily Limit on Standard Restores
Every restore is billed, so your organization sets how much can come back at Standard priority in any 24 hours (200 GB unless an administrator changes it). Everything restored at Standard priority in the last 24 hours counts, the automatic restores included.
A restore that would go past the limit is refused with This restore would go past your organization's daily limit on Standard restores. An administrator can still restore the files, or you can try again once earlier restores fall out of the 24 hours. Administrators are never held to the limit, and the audit ledger records when one restores past it. A limit of 0 means only administrators can restore at Standard priority. Files already coming back are never refused.
After You Ask
The activity tray follows the restore (Restoring from archive storage — Ready about …), and you get a notice when the files are back. A restored file comes back to Cool and stays online for 30 days by default before the nightly sweep may archive it again, and only while the case is still closed and its windows still over.
If Azure has not finished after 24 hours (6 hours at High), the banner and the tray say the restore is taking longer than expected. After seven days you and the administrators get a notice.
Restores AccessPoint Starts by Itself
These use Standard priority, are recorded with their cost in the audit ledger, and count towards the daily limit without being refused by it:
- A complaint linked to a request restores the request's archived originals, so they are online while the complaint is investigated. This is on by default and an administrator can turn it off.
- A preservation hold placed with Keep the files online restores the case's archived originals and keeps them online until the hold is released.
Reopening a Case
Reopening asks what to do with the case's archived originals:
- Restore them — Standard (usually back within 15 hours) — the default.
- Restore them — High priority (faster, costs more) — administrators only.
- Don't restore them now.
A reopened case's files come back to Hot, ready for the work, and its removed preview copies are rebuilt. A Standard restore chosen here is held to the daily limit: past it, the reopen is refused before anything changes and says so. Reopen with Don't restore them now, or ask an administrator.
Previews Removed by Housekeeping
When a storage policy's housekeeping is on, it removes only what AccessPoint can make again by itself, free and identically: a recording's playback copy, poster and timeline images, viewer copies, layout previews, and a viewer PDF that no redaction mark sits on. A marked or redacted document keeps its viewer PDF. Transcripts, captions, on-screen text, audio descriptions, released files and originals are never removed.
On a closed case, the banner's Rebuild previews (or Rebuild preview when you open such a document) queues the conversions again. It is free and ready in the time a conversion takes; a recording plays its original meanwhile when the browser can. A rebuild puts the copies back and nothing else: no new suggestions, no transcription, no AI spend. If the original is in archive storage, the rebuild waits for a restore. Rebuilt copies are new files, so Defender for Storage, when it is on, scans them again.
Related Pages
- Preservation Holds on a Case — stop anything on a case from being deleted or moved.
- Mark Package as Sent — recording which package reached the requestor.
- Disposition — disposing of files before the case itself is purged.
- Retention Review — the retention purge, unchanged by archiving.
- Storage Report — where your files are and what they cost.
- Storage and Archiving — storage policies, limits and prices for administrators.